The egos have landed

Take one part Tool, some Guns N' Roses and a dash of Smashing Pumpkins and you've got A Perfect Circle, reports George Palathingal.

A PERFECT CIRCLEHordern Pavilion, Fox Studios, Moore ParkTonight and tomorrow, 7pm$68.60Bookings 9266 4800Tonight is sold out

The term "supergroup" is enough to put the fear of God inside any music fan - so many egos in one room will end in disaster, surely? Yet somehow a former guitar technician from California appears to have changed all that.

Billy Howerdel is now a rock star in his own right as a guitarist with A Perfect Circle.

He has always written most of the band's brooding, atmospheric alt-rock, with bonkers Tool singer Maynard James Keenan supplying the lyrics.

Rounding out the rest of the Circle are one-time Guns N' Roses drummer Josh Freese, Jeordie White, the bassist known as Twiggy Ramirez when he knocked around with Marilyn Manson, and stranded Smashing Pumpkin James Iha, who replaced guitarist Troy van Leeuwen (who now plays with Queens of the Stone Age) after the completion of A Perfect Circle's second album, Thirteenth Step.

So, there must have been conflicts galore making this record?

"Y'know, just as far like anybody else would makin' any piece of art," says Howerdel. "I feel strongly about what I wanna do, [Keenan] feels strongly, Josh feels strongly, Jeordie does so ...

"You just have to try and prove your point or, y'know, see the vision that somebody else has got going. You have to make compromises in some kind of way. Yeah, it's a struggle, but it's also worth it at the end of the day. We came out of it with something we're really proud of."

It's a cool attitude, particularly when you consider that A Perfect Circle was originally Howerdel's band.

It was Howerdel who had been writing the songs during his tech years, long before Keenan offered his services. Up until that point, he had even imagined female vocals accompanying his music.

However, such has been the compelling Tool frontman's influence that not only has he helped re-imagine Howerdel's musical vision, Keenan also took over artwork duties on the excellent Thirteenth Step, too.

Howerdel remains impressively mellow about all of this.

"Well, how else can you be?" he says. "For me, it just seems natural.

"But I mean, that's what it is, it's a collaboration. So it's not just mine, now it's both of ours. And some of the other songs are more than just both of ours, branching off into writing with the band.

"Our next outing will probably be a much more collaborative effort."

As for the album's Keenan-directed artwork ... well, it features a woman with what appears to be a long, yellow jalapeno pepper stuck to her face. Closer inspection reveals it is actually a slug. Has anyone else made this potentially concept-belittling mistake?

"When we were doin' the photo shoot and we found that thing and put it on [the model's] face, she had no idea it was on there for 10 minutes ... it was frozen solid.

"It was in a forest up in Big Sur, California, which is a lot like your neck of the woods, I guess - just this incredible redwood forest. But it was freezing cold and she was just ... numb.

"I think she was horrified by the thought of it and she said, 'I'm really startin' to get worried about it' ... And he slimed her face."

Howerdel's a fan of our "neck of the woods", having spent time in Oz apart from touring.

"It was one of the places, maybe one of the only places I've been that I've spent time after a tour," he says. "I stayed in Melbourne for almost a month. Yep, I like Australia."

He's also aware that the feeling's mutual.

"I've said this to everyone: we probably feel more popular in Australia than anywhere else, including even the States. Per capita, to be able do the business that we're doin' down there is really great."

Things have turned out quite nicely, then, despite the derailment of Howerdel's original intentions. Does he wonder what the band might have sounded like had he pursued his plans for a female singer?

"No," he says. "I think where it went is a great, happy accident. I think it worked out better than I thought it was going to."